That's the advice I give people, too, Warren! It's a great way to recover from vanishing villagers or other 'bad' happenings in your game. Like I always say, save early, save often!!

An alternative (if you don't mind messing with your system clock) is to check the date/time of your savegame file and set your clock to match! Since this was a rescue mission for a recent catastrophe, none of that was necessary!